AL in-person meet in Delhi dropped
A planned face-to-face meeting between ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and senior Awami League (AL) leaders at her Delhi residence was cancelled Friday and will instead go ahead virtually, a senior party leader told this correspondent.
The meeting was scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Bangladesh time. As of 9:30 p.m., when this report was filed, further details on the meeting’s outcome could not be immediately obtained.
According to the party leader, Awami League figures who had already travelled
to Delhi for the meeting were informed on Thursday that the in-person gathering would not proceed.
However, the Kolkata-based online outlet The Wall reported Friday that the meeting had not been scrapped altogether but merely moved online, with the Awami League describing reports of an outright cancellation as “rumours.”
The shift to a virtual format effectively broadens participation, allowing senior party figures based outside India – including in Europe and the United States – to join. Among them, according to The Wall, is Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader, who is expected to participate from Kolkata after being unable to travel to Delhi following eye surgery.
The meeting had originally been planned at the Delhi bungalow where Hasina has resided since fleeing Bangladesh, with roughly 25 senior leaders expected to attend in person.
Several had already arrived in the Indian capital by Thursday evening ahead of the now-cancelled gathering.
The gathering comes as questions over the Awami League’s future leadership have grown more pressing in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, Hasina told The Wall in an interview that senior Presidium Member Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim would carry out the duties of party president in her absence.
Adding a further dimension to Friday’s meeting, a section of party leaders is reportedly pushing for Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, and her daughter, Saima Wazed Putul, to take part, according to The Wall.
Neither holds a position in the party’s central leadership – Joy is an Awami League member without a senior organizational role, while Putul has not formally entered party politics, though she is set to join the presidium, the party’s highest policy-making body.
As Awami League president, Hasina retains the authority to invite individuals from outside the central leadership to party meetings, and several other non-central figures have reportedly been asked to attend Friday’s session as well.
Backdrop of Diplomatic Tension
The meeting unfolds against a backdrop of escalating friction between Dhaka and New Delhi over Hasina’s political activities while residing in India.
The Week reported that news of the in-person meeting’s cancellation surfaced shortly after Dhaka lodged a protest over Hasina’s participation in an event organized by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia.
India has maintained that the event was organized by a private body and that its government had no involvement.
The Week also reported that Mahdi Amin, an adviser to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, recently told Indian High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi that individuals residing on Indian soil should not be permitted to engage in activities aimed at destabilizing Bangladesh – a remark widely seen as directed at Hasina’s continued political engagement from exile.
